


Be With Me

by Fairleigh



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Between Episodes, Communicating Across Time, Force Healing, Gen, injured animal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-25 13:27:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22296691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fairleigh/pseuds/Fairleigh
Summary: Rey uses the Force and makes remote contact with a stranger in the desert.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi & Rey
Comments: 2
Kudos: 66
Collections: Past Imperfect Future Unknown 2019





	Be With Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RaineyDay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaineyDay/gifts).



_No one’s ever really gone._

Luke had said this to her Master before his final confrontation with Kylo Ren. The basic truths behind his words were prosaic enough: The dead did indeed live on after death in the minds of those who remembered them. In the stories others told about them. And finally, most importantly, in the legacies — good _and_ bad — which they might leave behind for the future.

But there was also more. The ghosts of the Jedi dead had actually spoken to Luke, or so her Master had told her. Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and even Anakin Skywalker himself — supposedly they’d all visited with him with some regularity, offering hard-won wisdom, knowledge of the past, and warnings about the future. Sometimes, she’d said, Luke used to say that they were just _there_ , standing nearby. Silent, watching, but supportive.

Rey had no reason not to believe this. Over the past nine months since Crait, she’d learned that the Force could be used to perform what others throughout the galaxy would call miracles … and she figured that she and the beleaguered Resistance could use a miracle or two. Or three.

She’d come of age on a desert planet. The Force was on Jakku too because the Force was in all places and within all things, but the sparsely populated world with its simple ecosystem was like a single, easy musical tune comprised of ten notes. The jungle world of Ajan Kloss, by contrast, was like ten symphonic orchestras all performing together. The rude abundance of life made the subtler patterns harder to perceive.

“Be with me, be with me, be with me,” she whispered. A chant, an incantation, a call. Over and over and over. Her eyes were closed; her mind was open to the numinous energies of the universe.

And … nothing. No response whatsoever.

“Be with me, be with me, be with me …!” Rey had attempted this countless times and failed. Yet she refused to be discouraged. The stakes were too high, the potential reward too great. She made herself into nothingness, negative space. Somewhere were things hidden from normal view. She would therefore be the vacuum pulling the benevolent spirits of the universe into her. Yes, yes. She wanted them; no, she needed them! She pulled harder, harder, harder —

Ajan Kloss’s cacophony quieted, and the heaviness of the jungle’s humid air lifted. There was still heat, but it was a dry heat. And while there was life, it was scattered and hard won. The hills and crests and valleys of sand dunes, reaching in every direction as far as the eye could see, like a sea made of yellow sand, stretched out before her.

“Why hello there.”

Rey whirled about; the voice had seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. The owner, however, was nowhere in sight.

“How strange,” the voice continued. “I can’t see you, either. But I feel you. You’re definitely there.”

Strange indeed, yes. Rey sensed the shape of the words and their intent, but she didn’t think they’d actually been spoken aloud. It was almost as if she were having a conversation in her head with herself as the sole interlocutor, and she might have concluded that this was all that was happening were the voice — and the presence it represented — so emphatically _not Rey_ that she’d never mistake it for a figment of her imagination. Nevertheless, this was different than anything she had experienced before, including with Ben Solo.

“Who are you? Do I know you?” Rey asked.

But even before she’d finished forming the words of the questions in her mind, she had the answer: No, she didn’t know this person. He (and yes, this was a man) was a stranger to her … although there was something about him, a gentle, misty current in the Force, solitude and sorrow, which reminded Rey of Master Skywalker. In other respects, though, in his certitude and his patient, unshakeable faith, he couldn’t have been more different than Master Skywalker.

Also, he had hope. Somehow, despite suffering grievous loss, he had hope.

“My name is Rey. Please, teach me,” Rey began. “I need to know — ”

The stranger had stopped listening to her. His concentration was fixed on point just beyond the nearest dune ridge. They paused together, waiting, anticipatory. And then, Rey heard it too: a piteous wail. The pain in the Force was palpable.

“Oh dear. Someone’s been injured,” the stranger said as he hastened forward towards the source of the cry.

The injured “someone” appeared to be an animal. Rey could see the animal in a way that she could not see the stranger who spoke to her. She was not familiar with the species, but it was large, and its thick coat of hair, large horns, and large mouth implied a desert-adapted grazing animal. It normally walked on all fours, obviously, but this one was going nowhere fast. The animal lay on its side. It cried out again mournfully. One of its legs was turned out at an awkward angle and dripping a thin stream of blood onto the sand. Broken in at least two places.

“I did warn you about the krayt dragons, Loana, didn’t I? You should have remembered to keep close to the herd.” Despite the admonishment, the stranger wasn’t angry. Just sad.

“Can’t you do anything?” Rey asked.

She felt the stranger’s refusal wash over her. “A bantha which strays from the herd is not long for this world, I’m afraid. It is the natural order of things. The rest of Loana’s family will be the stronger for having been given such an unfortunate reminder of their mortality.”

“Yes, but what of _Loana_?” Rey asked, insistent. The stranger had taken enough interest to give this animal a name. Surely he cared what happened to it! “Can’t you set broken bone?”

“No. Even with a splint she would not be able to walk for months, and an immobile bantha is as good as dead. I cannot perform miracles. The most I can give her is a quick end to her miser — ”

“Wait!” _Miracles_. Could it be …? “Couldn’t you use the Force heal her?”

The stranger seemed surprised. “Force healing is a lost art. The last known practitioner died over two centuries ago. And anyway, some considered it unnatural, for it required the linking of the healer’s own lifeforce to that of the healed. An unnecessary and often _dangerous_ attachment to life when it would be better to allow life to take its course unimpeded to the finish … ”

He was thinking of his own loss, Rey realized. Of a dear friend, maimed and burnt. The injuries had been fatal, and they hadn’t happened that long ago. Perhaps a third of a year had passed since then? Dead and gone, lost forever, and while the loss of this dear friend had been accepted with grace, his absence was a crippling pain which had yet to fully heal —

“You don’t have to give in. Why are you giving in? So maybe some friends are beyond saving, but look! Loana isn’t dead yet,” Rey pointed out. “She can still be saved! The danger shouldn’t frighten you if it means saving a life. It doesn’t frighten me. In fact — ”

She reached out, with the Force, with herself, with an offering —

The bantha rose and stood. Its leg was straight and strong. _Healed._ Rey gasped; she hadn’t known she could actually do that!

Happiness for his bantha friend was warring with newfound suspicion of Rey in the stranger’s mind. “Who are you? _What_ are you? I’m certain I don’t know you, but you seem strangely familiar … ”

“I’m Rey. I already told you!” She shouldn’t snap at him; she knew better than that. But she felt so frustrated. She had helped his friend, and still he didn’t trust her?! “As a matter of fact — ”

The connection broke abruptly, and Rey was returned to Ajan Kloss. She’d lost control of the meditation. _Again_. Too much emotion. But she’d made progress, and she had newfound resolve:

_No one’s ever really gone if they can be restored._

Now Rey knew that what was broken could be healed again … and that she could do it herself. And she would. Yes, she would meet this challenge. Hope surged through her veins. She was not afraid.


End file.
